


home, where dust once was a man

by neverfadingrain



Category: Iron Man (Movies)
Genre: F/M, PTSD, Pepper makes him better, Potential Triggers, Tony doesn't deal with things well, general appreciation of Iron Man 3
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-07
Updated: 2013-05-07
Packaged: 2017-12-10 16:01:49
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,249
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/787865
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/neverfadingrain/pseuds/neverfadingrain
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tony doesn't really sleep anymore.</p>
            </blockquote>





	home, where dust once was a man

**Author's Note:**

  * For [zihna](https://archiveofourown.org/users/zihna/gifts).



> I wrote this at 2 in the morning after seeing the Iron Man 3 premiere and then coming back, finishing up a final paper due the next day, and vomiting feelings all over the floor. I've been sitting on it since then, trying to decide if it needed anything else. Kudos to Kate for giving me the push I needed to post it.
> 
> Dedicated to Haley, because she's lovely and deserves it and I miss her.

home, where dust once was a man

 

 

Tony doesn’t really sleep anymore. It’s not that he doesn’t want to—for maybe the first time in his life, Tony wants nothing more than to be able to collapse unconscious for a few hours and _stop thinking_ —but every time he closes his eyes he sees New York.

(Don’t think about it, nothing in every direction as far as the eye can see, the suit slowly dying around him, noiseless, don’t think about it)

Instead, Tony builds. Throws every part of himself into the next suit and the next, constantly improving. He doesn’t know what he’s searching for, making all these suits—each one is different from the last, a new idea, a different spin on the original—but he knows he’ll find it if he _just keeps building._

The Mark 42 is a prototype. That doesn’t mean Tony doesn’t have other toys to play with when things go awry, other distractions to focus his exhausted brain on until he’s so tired he can’t see straight, much less think coherently or even dream. He’s building an armada, even if he doesn’t know when (or if) he’ll ever need one.

But that doesn’t mean he wants to take the chance.

After New York he’s been filled with a restless tension. Going through a wormhole (don’t think about it, breathless, empty darkness all around, floating, don’t think about any of it) will do that to you, he thinks wryly. A crazed urge to work, improve, perfect fills his waking hours. At night, he’s seized by insatiable paranoia, certain that every time he wakes he’ll be back in that black nothingness—don’t think about it, Tony, _don’t—_ but this time he won’t be saved, won’t fall back through in the nick of time. Won’t be caught by the best friend he’s never deserved.

SHIELD certainly hadn’t helped. Bruce was one thing, the Capsicle another, but no way was Tony putting up with Nick Fury dropping by for dinner every other week. JARVIS had eventually keyed all the doors to prevent him from entering, tired of asking the Director politely to leave every five minutes while Tony threatened to throw things.

He doesn’t feel empty inside, though. Tony’s been to enough mandatory psych evals to know that’s the first warning sign for therapists, and he counts it as a good sign that he can still feel things. But then that’s a problem in and of itself, he thinks—he can’t _stop_ feeling, and it’s driving him insane faster than those long months in a terrorist camp did.

So he builds suits. And he trains with them.

One day, he thinks, flipping through the air and trusting his tech not to fail him—JARVIS knows what to do, has been working with Tony from the very beginning, probably knows what Tony plans on doing next even before Tony does—one day he’ll need this. The suits. The training. He records all his sessions and watches them back repeatedly, looking for ways to improve both his suits and his own body. He can’t rely on having a suit to step into all the time, and until he gets the Mark 42 up and functioning completely there won’t be a way to have armor instantly accessible all the time. He needs to be ready for anything.

(They’re out there, waiting, watching, he _saw_ them, he’s not crazy)

(Don’t think about it, empty stretches of nothing, gasping, dying, don’t think about any of it, you can’t handle it, you’ll go insane)

It’s only when he’s got the Mark 42 prototype working, when he can flick a wrist and summon a gauntlet to him in the blink of an eye, that Tony starts to realize what he’s built the suits for. He’s never been one for all that psychoanalysis, self-reflection, personal introspection crap, but he knows enough to be aware that he is fucked up in the head.

Most people would stop before they felt the need to constantly be encased in a flying suit of armor, Tony thinks—or at least he hopes they would. He’s got enough on his plate without having to worry about the mental health of the entire human race.

But when he wakes up in the middle of the night, shaking, breathless, terrified, only to see a suit looming over him and Pepper, he realizes what his brain’s been trying to tell him ever since New York.

He doesn’t feel safe anymore.

Not outside in public, not in his home, not with Pepper, not asleep—there’s nowhere left for him to run, he doesn’t feel safe _anywhere_ except when he’s in the armor. Because when he’s in the armor, Tony’s invincible. Nothing can touch him, and if it tries he has a sure-fire guaranteed way to send them packing. The suit can protect him.

Except—can it?

(Don’t think about it, lights flickering to black, JARVIS’ voice crackling out in his ear, nothing’s moving, he can’t get a response, _stop Tony you’re just making it worse_ )

Tony’s been trying to find a way around the suit’s limitations, he realizes. That’s what he does, after all. He fixes things, puts them back together again, makes them _better_.

He’s a mechanic.

That’s all he’s good for anymore. Pepper can’t handle him, doesn’t know what he went through (don’t think about it, Tony, _stop_ ) and doesn’t know how to deal with it. He’s terrified he’s gonna lose her too, let the best thing that’s ever happened to him slip away like one of the rare dreams that don’t involve giant wormholes in space.

He’s broken. He’s a worn-out old machine that can’t keep up anymore, too many gears and springs that don’t work quite right anymore. Tony’s making the suits to make up for his own imperfections, trying to make himself whole again by perfecting the one thing he has control over anymore.

Eventually, Tony does realize what he’s doing. He _is_ aware of what’s going on in his head, after all—he just doesn’t like to admit it, because what’s going on in his head scares him something fierce. But awareness isn’t the answer to everything, Tony knows.

He _knows._

Because as much as he hates himself for spending so much time working, for spending all his time working on the suits, for ignoring Pepper in favor of trying to make himself feel safe again, Tony doesn’t stop. _Can’t_ stop.

He needs to feel safe again. That’s the only way he’s ever going to sleep.

 

 

 

After everything calms down again, after the surgeries and the reconstruction are taken care of, Tony sleeps for what feels like a week. Pepper wraps herself around him like a human shield in their bed, her breathing slow and calm against his back. Slowly, she lulls him into the land of unconsciousness. He takes a deep breath, two, lets his eyes flutter closed.

It’s only when he wakes, a full twenty hours later, that Tony realizes he didn’t have a single dream the entire time he was asleep. Not New York, not the oil rig, nothing. He feels safe for the first time since the wormhole (it’s okay Tony, you can think about it, it can’t hurt you anymore), and he knows exactly what’s shifted.

Pepper climbs back into bed, artfully balancing a glass of orange juice and the evening paper, and grins at him. “Mornin’, sleepyhead,” she teases.

Tony smiles, laces his fingers with hers, and closes his eyes again.


End file.
